The World's Most Beautiful Places
A view of the recently dedicated Gold Star Families Memorial Monument in Jeffersontown, Kentucky. A Gold Star Family is one that has suffered a lost member of the military in the American Armed Forces ( United States Navy, Army, Air Force, or Marines) during wartime. Jeffersontown is part of the Louisville Metropolitan Area.
The Old Louisville historic district, located in Kentucky, boasts the largest concentration of Victorian-Style buildings (and homes with stained glass windows) in the United States. Those styles include the Romanesque, Queen Anne, and Italiante. The district covers 48 city blocks and is located south of Louisville main business district, and north of the city’s largest college campus, the University of Louisville. Construction in the area began in the 1870’s and while its called Old Louisville, its actually younger than other parts of the city, which itself dates to 1780. The most famous part of Old Louisville is focused around St. James Court and Belgravia Court, but the distinct buildings the area is known for extended across multiple streets, including 1st to 6th streets, and Mangnolia to Hill Street.
Romanesque buildings are often built with thick walls, round arches, sturdy piers, groin vaults, large towers, and decorative arcades.
Italiante homes tend to haev low-piched or flat roofs, a symmetrical retangural shape that is multiple stories high, wide, overhanging eaves with large brackets and cornices, square cupolas, and balustrated balconies
Queen Anne style homes are often have an asymmetrical front facade, with a large porch, and decorative wood trim. The roofs are steep with cross gables or large dormers. And the houses tend to feature a round or polygonal front corner tower with a conical roof.
A view of Grawemeyer Hall with a close-up of the Thinker statue from the Oval, on the Belknap campus of the University of Louisville, in Louisville, Kentucky.
Grawemeyer Hall was built in 1926, and currently houses adminstrative offices of the university president, provost, and vice presidents. The building is named for Charles Grawemeyer, a major benefactor to the University. At one time it served as the University’s library. The building was modeled after Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda on the grounds of the University of Virginia. And on its steps, stands one of the original castings of Auguste Rodin’s the Thinker.
The University of Louisville is a public research university founded in 1798, via a charter by the Kentucky General Assembly. The university moved to its current location, the Belknap campus in 1923, and became a public state university in 1970.
The university is home to the Louisville Cardinals, and includes athletic programs for baseball, football and soccer. As of 2013 the Cardinals have won 50 Big East Championships across all sports.